A restless night passed for me. Varien, Ishina, and I sat at the kitchen table and were having breakfast.

“Eris, you looked really exhausted yesterday, and your face looks even worse now.”

Ishina had a worried tone.

“It... It’s complicated... I mean the letter. Before I left Astel, I got something rolling…”

“Do you regret it?”

Varien asked me, but I then shook my head.

“I don’t regret it. I just wished it had happened long ago.”

 My decision was made. I wanted to take revenge, although nothing would change. The dead cannot return to life, I was aware of this, but I couldn’t let this injustice rest.

“You have to go, am I right?”

Ishina asked me with a split feeling.

“That’s what the letter says.”

“When?”

“I should be there by 23rd next month. This is the latest date.”

She made a thoughtful face.

“The twenty-third… Then we have barely one and a half weeks until you have to leave. You have shown great progress in training, but it is not over.”

Varien looked at Ishina.

“Don’t you want to go with her? I remember an invitation for you. Wasn’t it the usual invitation to Tersima?”

She looked over at him in derogation.

“I don’t want to see this person!”

“Person?”

I was irritated that I had never heard Ishina talk so pejoratively about a person before.

How terrible must the person be that someone as lovely as Ishina talks about her so badly?

Ishina continued to speak to Varien.

“You know what that person is like, and probably she would keep Eris as a pet. Look at how cute she is!”

She pointed at me and looked worried.

“Hey! I’m not a pet!?”

She turned to me.

“I know, but you could become if her higherup takes an interest in you.”

A shiver ran down my neck.

“Ishina, enough! You have postponed the meeting for five years! Eris doesn’t have to meet that person. It is enough if you travel with them to Astel and then went further to Tersima alone. Take the port in Soboi. The trip is only a little longer as if you were going to Tersima and from there cross the border.”

She thought about it.

“I’m going, but only if you-”

“Declined! Someone has to run the business and keep the house clean. I also want to live a quiet life at my age.”

Ishina leaned over to Varien and grabbed his shoulder.

“Your age!? What should a child like you know about age? I’m thirty-two years older than you!?”

“That doesn’t count! Vampires just age much more slowly!”

Their conversation drifted off the subject, and the flirting was just too much for me, and I sneaked away.

 

===

 

Ishina and I started our morning training in the garden of the house. Since I mastered meditation, it had consisted of one hour of meditation and one hour of mana manipulation. During the meditation, I just sat there, but during the mana manipulation, I had to make movements that reminded me of fighting positions or war dances again and again. At first, it seemed strange to me, but after a while, I felt my mana flow change.

At noon, Ishina was busy with the stand in the City of Light, and I had free time. On some days, I helped her out, and on others taught me Varien melee techniques with a dagger or without weapons.

Today was a day when Varien demonstrated some weaponless attack techniques and explained how to do them. As a practical exercise, some young city guards trainees were also in his training alongside me.

 

===

 

Afternoon dawned.

“Eris, let’s talk about next month.”

Ishina and I were sitting in her study.

“As Varien said, there is someone who wants me to visit them. I will, therefore, go with you, at least to Soboi. In Soboi will we take separate paths, but that doesn’t mean that I want to cancel your training, I want you to travel to Tersima after you are done. I don’t really want to introduce you to the person and who is behind her, but I think I must…”

I put my head to the side.

“You must? Can’t we meet again in Fanhai or Soboi?”

She shook her head.

“This will be a longer assignment, so I will continue to teach you in Tersima.”

*Clap*

“Let me explain what a skill stone is. I have no more nerve to talk about that person.”

She took five stones from one of the drawers in her desk and placed them in a row in front of me.

“As you can see, these stones look very normal. They don’t even have glyphs because they are not intended to be used by third parties. With a glyph, everyone could determine what kind of ability is in it. Simple ability stones are often sold in such stones, but that only scratches the surface of what they are capable of.”

She pulled a book from one of the bookshelves and flipped through it a little. She turned the book over and showed me the page.

“These stones can manipulate a user’s mana to activate the ability that lies within the stone. This is only possible once, of course, which means that if you want to learn the ability, you have to memorize exactly how it felt when the stone activated the skill.”

She turned one page back.

“Let us come to their emergence. In Tareh, there are exactly two volcanoes where this material can be found. One is here on Tes, the other in Thane. Why this stone only appears on these two volcanoes is unknown. The structure of these stones is very unstable, so they break easily, but a certain size is required to store more powerful abilities in them. Therefore, the small stones can be bought cheaply, but the important large ones can be bought for enormous amounts.”

She folded up the book and set it aside. She turned back to the stones.

“As you can see, these two stones are as big as yours, and these three are of smaller size.”

She pointed to the stones and started talking about them.

“The smallest can only hold one (fireball). In which fits here (fire arrow) and here in the last one (fire explosion). The other two here can be upgraded with advanced skills and...”

She opened the drawer again and took out a stone that had the size of a fist. This stone I got from Ishina was the size of a grape, but it was five times the size of it.

“I packed (eruption) a long time ago in this stone, but none of my former students were qualified enough to learn this ability.”

“Why do you tell me that? Aren’t you afraid that I would sneakily try to learn the ability?”

She started to laugh.

“Do you want to try it?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Not really.”

She held the stone across the table.

“Try to touch the stone.”

I reached for the stone halfheartedly. When my hand just touched the surface, I heard a voice.

(You are not worthy of me!)

My hand was pushed off the stone with a small shock wave.

“T-the stone!?”

I stuttered in surprise, and Ishina started to laugh out loud.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAaa ... you understand now, am I right?”

“Yes, the stone has its personality. It decides whether I am worthy.”

Ishina’s laughing face suddenly became serious.

“You could hear the voice?”

She asked me in a startled voice.

“Yes, why?”

She had an inner monologue, moving her lips in the process. It took a minute before she got back together and turned to me.

“You are the first person to hear the voice of the stone beside me.”

“What did the voice say to you? She said to me, “You are not worthy!”.”

Ishina looked at the stone and was silent for a moment.

“It says, “Creator, use me.”.”

She put the stone back into the drawer.

“Come on, that was enough knowledge about the stones, let’s get outside the city wall and see if you can learn (flash fire) through the stone or do it the old fashioned way.”

We left her study, and she explained to Varien where we were going. Meanwhile, from the kitchen, I put snacks in my pocket, as we wouldn’t be back until dinner.

 

===

 

“Eris, try to feel your mana flow down to the smallest detail.”

I sat on the forest floor and meditated while Ishina led me in a calming voice. The stone was in my hands, not yet activated.

“Now, try to direct your mana through the stone. The mana must flow through the stone and not concentrate in it! It has to become part of your body.”

I felt the mana concentrated in the stone.

“Think about your exercises! Let the mana flow.”

I focused on the flow. The situation relaxed a little, but I felt something happening in the stone. My mana changed and was released without my intervention.

I still had my eyes closed, but I felt my mana escape.

“That was all.”

Ishina’s voice came from the side. I opened my eyes and looked over at her.

“And?”

“We have to test that now. Try to recall that feeling you felt when you released it. And imagine exactly this form of appearance.”

She stuck her right arm in the air, and a bright red flash shot out of her hand.

Ok, I can do it!

I did the same as Ishina did. I stretched my hand in the air and imagined to create a (flash fire). I also recalled the feeling that the stone had triggered in me.

As beautiful as it would have been, what I wanted to happen didn’t happen. An uncontrolled type of (flash fire) came out of my hand and shot in every direction. I stopped my mana flow and prevented more shots.

*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

Ishina clapped for me.

“Very well! You now have two days to master this skill, because the more you fail, the less chance there is of learning the skill, so try your best. Oh, yes! If the skill should appear in your ability list, I want you to try it out, even if your goal is a haunted tree.”

She went to the bag of food I had previously packed and sat under a tree.

So, let's try again!